Assessment Tour: UNIBEN Hostels Soon to get Facelift

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The new Vice Chancellor of the University of Benin, (UNIBEN) Professor Edoba Bright Omoregie, senior advocate of Nigeria, (SAN) has given an indication that students’ hostels in the university would soon be overhauled to make them conducive for learning. Staff welfare would also receive deserved attention in terms of training, capacity building and prompt payment of their entitlements.
Speaking to journalists on Wednesday after a tour of the two campuses of the university – Ugbowo and Ekehuan – to assess the state of facilities particularly hostels, Omoregie, who assumed office as the 11th vice chancellor of UNIBEN, said one of his visions for the institution was not just to train and graduate students, but to turn the institution into a training hub for both students, staff and outsiders who could use the school to improve their skills.
An alumnus of the university, Prof. Omoregie observed that most of the hostel facilities were in poor state due to age and non-maintenance and promised to engage alumni and friends of the university to complement statutory allocations to the school to reposition it.
He recalled that “On the day of my inauguration, I made a pledge that I will visit the hostel facilities on campus because I believe that the students are my first responsibility as a former student myself. I have firsthand experience of the very poor nature of the facilities of the hostels such as toilets, common rooms, beddings and so forth.
“What I could see from the assessment which is a preliminary overview is that the hostels in the campuses are very poor in terms of facilities. Many of them are aged and therefore the facilities are also aged so they need replacements. Many of them will need refurbishment so that the students can feel truly that the University cares about them.
“We are already designing appropriate responses, but I will need to interact with the stakeholders properly before we can begin to reveal what we intend to do. This is just one out of the mission and vision we have. Number three is to ensure that there is adequate welfare for students, and the hostel facilities is just one of them.
“We also have the welfare of staff to ensure that the students can benefit from their skills; and this is not only in terms of ensuring that their entitlements are paid, but also to encourage them through massive training in terms of skills acquisition, capacity building, because the university has a crop of seasoned scholars in virtually every field of endeavour. We believe that our mandate is not just awarding degrees but also to turn the university into a hub of training.”